For the 30 or so members of Center City Citizens Cooperating, it was a chance to meet Dave Martin, who recently opened an Allentown office for U.S. Sen. Rick Santorum.

And for Martin, it was an introduction to the concerns of center city residents.

Martin came to Allentown from Santorum's Philadelphia office to meet the community group. Last night in Alliance Hall, he said he had come to learn and to see if his office could help the city get federal aid.

Don Adam, a member of Citizens Cooperating, raised the issue of crime. He said economic development in center city would be useless unless citizens "take back the streets" from criminals.

There were complaints about the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development and its units in Allentown. Residents said HUD should police the units better. They complained that New Yorkers and Philadelphians are being chosen to live in them over locals.

The transplants add to the city's crime problem, one resident said, noting that two New Yorkers with outstanding warrants had been found in a home searched by the police department's vice squad.

"They do the damage and then they go on somewhere else," he said.

Sandy Stecker, director of the Growing Connection day-care center at Salem UCC Church, 625 Chew St., spoke of landlords who use federal bankruptcy protection to avoid carrying out expensive repairs the city has ordered them to make.

The landlords hide other properties that could be sold for money to make repairs by putting them in a relative's name or setting up a corporation.

"It's a loophole that some landlords are taking advantage of," she said.

But federal bankruptcy laws also are being abused "by the other side of the table," said Nora Bell, a landlord who lives on N. 6th Street. Whenever tenants get in trouble, she said, a legal services organization files for bankruptcy for them, allowing them to squat in a building indefinitely rent free.

The condition of housing in center city was also an issue. One resident said he knew of a home that has been boarded up for 20 years.

Eleanore Freeman asked Martin, "Why can't we rebuild our own community, with a little bit of help from you all?"

Martin told the group that when he worked in Santorum's Philadelphia office, he helped a group rehabilitating homes for disabled veterans get a grant from the Department of Veterans Affairs. He said such grants are possible in Allentown.